UPDATED: Maybe There Will Be Basketball: The Almost-Final Episode of Buzzer Beat

September 14, 2009

Update: There is a reason I’m not in journalism right now…I handle facts about as well as Kanye handles award shows. Commenter Reed points out that there will actually be a 75 minute special next week (they announced this before SMAP Bistro, which I promptly turned off) so…everything written below is a complete waste. Radical. Well, uh, pretend I’m talking about the penultimate episode instead and tune in next week when I do the same thing like the chump I am.

(NOTE: It is your fault and your fault alone if you go on and read all these words about the TV I watch. You’ve been warned.)

A paraphrased version of a GChat conversation I had with my friend in Tokyo

Me: I need to get ready for Monday. I have work and introductions and Buzzer Beat
Her: Hahaha yeah I’m sad it’s the last episode though = (
Me: WAIT WHAT

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Whereas American television does all it can to milk a series for as long as possible (Law and Order what?), the Japanese apparently are OK letting a hugely popular show end. Much to my dismay, Buzzer Beat comes to a close tonight if my friend is right – and she speaks Japanese, so I think she knows what’s going on. I don’t get it – I see the Buzzer Beat dude on all sorts of magazine covers and variety shows…don’t you want to drain this for everything it’s worth? Or maybe I’m too American-thinking and should learn to let the dudes in pink uniforms go away.

Buzzer Beat was never what you would call my favorite show – my thoughts on the show can be summed up by a Google search that led some poor soul to this blog that goes “will they actually show basketball on buzzer beat?” I tuned into the show because of the loose basketball theme, received a heapin’ pile of melodrama I couldn’t understand with about three training montages sprinkled in. I kept waiting and waiting for some basketball……and it never really came.

And still…I’ll kinda miss the show. Mostly because it was one of the few points of regularity in my Japanese life so far. I realize relying on a J-Drama for comfort is extremely pathetic, but it’s that or Music Station and at least I get out most Friday nights so I can’t watch that. My Mondays now exist just so I can catch up on NFL football and get pumped for Greek. It might have been pathetic…but so are most of my other weeknight activities (“maybe if I listen to the new Jay-Z album two more times, I’ll like it more”).

Anyway…here are some as-they-happen thoughts from the final episode. I can’t think of anyone reading this blog who would actually be worried about having this spoiled but, uh, for any of you lost Googlers…I’m stunned you’ve made it this far. Thank you so much, but turn back!

– Where we stand going into this – the main character guy is a total moron and can’t really figure out which of the two gorgeous girls he should go for. He eventually chooses the violinist and as he rushes towards her housw armed with a single sunflower (nice on Romeo) his head coach, who also likes this lady, is meeting her. Set fazers to drama!

– One thing I won’t miss about this show is the lame basketball metaphor that popped up every episode. The ball represents…ones-self? So sometimes the main character is feeling distraught and he can’t make a single basket. In this episode, the coach holds a basketball but then gives it to main character guy…to signify the ball (read: girl) is now in his court. Doing this once or twice might have been cool, but every single episode…c’mon, at least work in some sort of traveling analogy.

– Conflict for the final episode – main character guy hurt his leg and can barely walk. Cute girl he likes just got accepted into some sort of music conservatory and/or Soviet army.

– OK, scratch the music school angle I think she just got accepted to participate in some fancy performance. Semi-liveblogging foreign TV is hard work. Oh, and at said recital main protagonist dude isn’t there for his girl and she’s looking out at the audience but then the door opens and…COMMERCIAL!

– Welp, turned out to be main character guy. He bought a whole boquet of sunflowers this time, much classier.

-I think something depressing is happening. People hugging and talking at the same time, I feel that isn’t a good sign.

– Yep, the lady is crying. Bad times.

– Ahhhhhh, main character just had a single tear go down his cheek. Now that’s quality acting.

– Wait, did the show really just end like that? The main character and the girl walk away crying and then the lights just cut out and the music stops? Damn, that’s bleak Japan. We can’t even get a nice “hey, everyone ends up OK!” montage to close this out? Damn.

– Total amount of basketball in this episode – two shots of practice coming in at about 12 seconds total. No basketball and more hopeless than the black plague? See ya later Buzzer Beat, it’s time for SMAP Bistro!